


The Magic Key

by Gallusadin



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:17:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21228887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gallusadin/pseuds/Gallusadin
Summary: Day two of my daily efforts to improve and sharpen my creative writing skills. This is free-writing and these are not edited. I post these for the world to see because I am a masochist.





	1. Chapter 1

10 / 29 / 19 - “The Magic Key” After failing in his career and marriage, Will discovers a magic key that unlocks doors that open into a new world.  
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It had been a particularly hard November for William Brown; granted, October had been a gauntlet, and September hadn’t exactly given him any favors. Though his beloved Jaguars seemed poised to make a championship run, and the brutal heat so common to his native state of Florida had finally begun to relent; little seemed to go Williams way. This was not an uncommon occurrence, as rarely ever did anything of actual importance deign to sway in the favor of this unfortunate man. William pondered this, and his recent troubles; walking the shabby sidewalks of Jacksonville ( so long in disrepair!) towards the small apartment that he called home. There was a new crispness in the air as the sun began to sink in the sky, and though the breeze carried a less than desirable scent; it promised the tint of a short lived winter that might finally raise spirits. 

This was not a happy walk, and though it was certainly a walk towards Williams home, it was more significantly a walk away from yet another in a long line of failures. “Grants Manufacturing” a large industrial center near the outskirts of the city, proudly boasting the achievement of employing the majority of Jacksonville's poorly educated and middle class. 

“Ten years I gave that damn company!” William angrily thought to himself, picking up the pace and intensity of his stride. “All to be thrown away, wasted, squandered for a selfish pig plant manager!” he spat into the dirt along the sidewalk.

You see, William (who will be referred to simply as “Will” for the remainder of this strange story) worked as a line manager in a manufacturing subsection of his bosses factory. Will worked diligently, or so he told himself. Always popular with those who worked beneath him, though never truly respected by them; Will spent a good amount of his time fruitlessly chasing ideas or suggestions that would curry favor with the board of directors and earn him the position of power that he so desperately sought.

Well, so much for ideas. Tired of the years of mediocre production and wasted man hours his crew spent with him otherwise occupied, Will was met with a terse, cold pink slip as he left the plant this evening, one he still kept clenched tight in his hand as he marched down the sidewalk, closer and closer to his apartment. The sun had finally waved goodnight, sinking below the horizon, and allowing a brief moment of starlight to break through the night sky before being strangled out by brash streetlights. Turning the corner onto Abbot drive, Will made a slow pace towards a small, white building with a green roof and two windows near the entrance to his apartment complex. The mail room, and the first stop Will habitually made after his long days at the factory.

He laughed resignedly as reaching into his back pocket for his key ring, “at least I won’t always be the last one in here anymore” he chuckled to himself, unlocking the flimsy wood door and entering the darkness within. Navigating the pitch-black room with the grace of an expert, or of merely a robot who has made this trip countless times before; Will flicked the light switch on waited for the dull lights above to finally illuminate the room. Bathed in fluorescent light, Will approached and unlocked his mailbox, 661, the same as it had been for years. 

“Fucking christ” he muttered under his breath, quickly flipping through the enormous stack of letters that sat in his mailbox like a snake in a toolbox. Overdue bills, collection notices, repossession threats, long ignored troubles that sat at his doorstep made plainly manifest in the form of condemning letters. A cold emptiness washed through Wills body as he shut and locked his mailbox, and flipped through his mail. Not daring to open a single letter, as though the act of opening it would unleash the hell he had pushed back so long onto him. He could only muster the courage to read the titles, shifting through the letters as he locked the door behind him and slunk towards his apartment, hiding from both the terrors that pursued him, and any neighbors that might be about. 

When finally he entered his apartment; his secure (for the moment) hole in the ground, and locked the door behind him, he meandered through the empty space, kicking table and cat to the side before coming to a final, heavy plop in a large recliner chair. Hardheartedly flicking through the last of the mail, Will felt his heart sink deep into his chest, and that damned cold take over once again. 

“Duval County Divorce Court” read the header, “To the address of one William Brown” it continued. Will cursed under his breath as he clenched the letter. It had only been a week he had told himself, she was just frustrated, she would change her mind; though the truth of the situation was as plain as day in his trembling hands. Memories of that painful day flashed into his mind as he dug his fingers into the sides of his head and stifled tears. Eliza, his dear Eliza; married nearly four years next month; pursued for far longer than that, had left him. Images of screaming arguments and overturned kitchen tables haunted him. The endless promises run dry, debt mounting up all around them; coming home to packed bags and her mother parked outside. Will figured she would come back after she had some time to cool down, but this…

Agony overtook the poor man, as he screamed painfully into the night, hurling his stack of mail recklessly into the air, tears pouring down his face. He stood from his chair and began to desperately make his way for the bottle of Vodka that he no longer bothered to hide in the cupboard, before stopping in his tracks once again at a strange sound. One of the letters he had not yet read fell to the laminate floor with a terribly loud “clack” sound that shook Will from his somber stupor. Leaning down to regard this strange letter, Will picked it up tentatively. It was heavy in his hands, and of dark green paper that felt coarse and thick. 

“For He Without Hope” read the glimmering silver ink engraving on the front, “The key out” it continued. Trembling fingers traced over the rough paper, clumsily fumbling open the seal at the top of the letter. Motivated by a strange sense of hope he could not explain, Will tore the letter open and dumped its contents into his hand. A bizarre key, made of solid jade and shaped into the effigy of an elk fell into his palm, followed by a smaller envelope stamped with forest green wax. His fingers wrapped around the key curiously, fascinated by its smooth texture and perfect color. Almost unconsciously, Will rolled the strange key back and forth in his hand, eyeing the envelope that had fallen with it. Taking a few cautious, trembling steps back before collapsing into his plush green couch; he set the key gently on the table beside him, and took the note firmly in both hands. 

“What the hell?...” he breathlessly exclaimed, “is all this about” he mused, fingering the edges of the letter, lightly breaking the seal. Will had made a promise to himself that he would never actually read any of the mail that came to him. Maintaining a healthy amount of ignorance to his predicament was all that allowed him to maneuver through the day. But now? There seemed little way that anything could get worse, he figured; he might as well indulge his curiosities. Tearing the wax aside and opening the note, Will was taken aback at script; the finest handwriting he had ever laid eyes on, written in the same liquid silver the envelope was marked in. It read.

Scurrying man, escape is what you seek  
But truly there’s no place at all  
For fortitudes so meek  
We offer you, a chance to prove  
That you can forge; a man anew  
To tame the shadowed forests  
You  
Will find that strength of courage  
Or  
Will find the death you seek.

When he came to the conclusion of the letter, the color had completely drained from Wills face. Escape? Shadowed forests? Death? None of it made any sense to the bewildered man. Not that Will exactly had a history of making good sense of things anyway. 

“It is late” Will declared aloud, confidently, attempting to regain some semblance of composure; and late it was. Not a single creature stirred outside his apartment, and in the warm light of his coffee table lamp; the solitude of the room, and the gravity of this letter began to sink in. “It is time for bed” he reasoned, leaving the note face down on top of the key, on the table beside the couch. Grabbing the bottle of Vodka, nearly empty, Will shuffled along the hallway towards his room, renewing his promise to never read any of his mail. Pulling aside the covers and draining the last of the bottle with the tolerance of a champion, Will collapsed into bed and allowed the numbness of eternity to overtake him.


	2. The Magic Key: Chapter 2

It was a particularly hard morning for William Brown. Despite the frequency and quantity of his drinking, he had yet to conquer the hangovers that now plagued him. It was mid morning, and the beams of sunlight that shone through his window came as an affront to his current condition. Grumbling and cursing and tossing aside the covers, Will made the titanic struggle required to get out of bed and clumsily reached for his nightstand to grab his glasses; only to freeze in absolute shock as his fingers instead once again felt the impossibly smooth jade surface of the elken key. 

“That’s impossible!” he cried, backing away from the key as though it were a horrid beast “I left it on the table,” he whispered to himself “ I left.. I left it on the table” he repeated, over and over again, as if trying to convince himself. Pacing around the room, trying to make sense of this revelation, Will pondered. “Could somebody have broken in?” he mused, growing angry momentarily before realizing the absurdity of the statement. He had little worth stealing, and no thief worth the title would merely move a key to his nightstand. Eyeing the empty bottle of vodka beside the bed, he laughed to himself. “Yeah that’s it” he chuckled “I do sleepwalk if i’ve drunk too much, what a silly notion”. 

Putting his discomforts to rest, he placed the key inside his nightstand drawer, threw on his fuzzy blue bathrobe and begrudgingly opened his bedroom door to make his way downstairs and begin searching for a new job; something he hadn’t had cause to do for a decade. 

All thought of the banalities of routine flew from Wills mind as his door swung open. The laminate of his hallway had been replaced with a thick, lush carpet of forest grass, massive tree roots tore through the walls, knocking over painting and picture. A smell of heavy dew lingered through the air, and all light seemed to be swallowed up in the sheer strangeness of the scene. He had no words. Will wasn’t sure what force motivated him out of his room and into the fantastic absurdity that had overtaken his small apartment, but slowly, he did. Cringing in discomfort as his bare feet sunk into the thick grass, and making his way through the hallway, ducking under enormous branches that seemed to spring from the very wall. No natural light illuminated these halls, instead a menagerie of fantastic and strange plants crawled up and down the walls, each giving its own haunting, colorful light. Strange wisps of glowing color floated off the ground and faded in and out of being. 

When finally Will had navigated his way to what was once his living room; for the hallway seemed so much longer than it had always been, he stood awestruck. The front door! It was gone! Replaced by a massive wooden arch at least ten feet tall. Thick and gnarled and covered in vines and flowers, etched at every open space in an ink so silver it appeared as liquid star. His couch, replaced with two large green mushrooms he could easily sit underneath, his kitchen nothing more than a series of knotted holes in the bark of an enormous tree. In fact, the only aspect of his previous house that remained were the vast series of collection letters and written threats; though they now lay scattered across lush vegetation, or on top of mushroom.

Frantically, Will fell to his knees and begin to dig through the stack of letters, searching for that strange green note he read last night, searching for some clue as to what had happened to him. Exclaiming a cry of success when he secured the note in hand, he opened it once again to find the script changed from that which he read last night. Further bewildered, if that was even possible at this point, Will nonetheless broke his renewed promise from last night and read the note. 

Fate waits for no man  
Least of all, its least  
Gone forever, is the world you knew  
William, William, what to do?  
Will you join the chosen few?  
Or merely become the forests feast.

Sheer panic overtook the poor man, scrambling from the floor, in full desperate flight for his bedroom, the last semblance of sanity left in this world gone mad. Flinging the door wide his knees nearly buckled underneath him in resigned terror. His room was gone; in its stead was a nearly empty chamber of massive vine and dark flower. The window that once poured obtrusive light replaced with a mere empty space, the other side of which revealed only countless stars. The strangest sight of all however, floated conspicuously in the center of the chamber. Nearly five feet off the ground, the jade key hovered ominously, giving off a subtle green glow. Possessed of a desire to flee this strange house and see if the world outside had gone insane as well, Will snatched the key from its magical levitation and bolted to the wooden arch that had replaced his front door.

Nervousness overtook Will as he slowly approached the massive archway. The jade key he gripped tight in his right hand began to thrum softly with a promise of power, and a swirling green mist began to form under the arch. 

“Do not fear” came a voice from somewhere far away, though it resonated sweetly in Wills head. “You were meant for this world, this is your place” it continued, hauntingly. The key began to change shape, grow, becoming longer and sharper, the handle forming a sturdy guard. Gradually its form became that of a brilliant jade sword, nearly transparent in the soft, multicolored glow of the plants; with a hilt that rose to the base of the blade in the shape of a leaping elk. The blade was beautiful, though it sat heavy in Wills hand, and was unwieldy. 

When finally the transformation had completed, the mist under the arch solidified, forming a thick green door etched with silver lining, that swung open ominously with the breeze. Beyond the doorway lay a massive forest, all dark growth and terrible trees.

“Come boldly, William Brown” bade the strange voice once again, “There is no turning back, and no denying destiny. Face your adventure head on” 

Terrified to the core, soothed by this cool, mystical voice, and empowered by the gleaming weapon he bore in his right hand. William Brown took small, increasingly bold steps towards the green door, and, with a finality unlike anything he had managed in his life this far.

Shut it behind him.


End file.
